A desperate cry of anguish for "Boomer Rage"

StevieJ

BillJones wrote: »

Or, to put it another way,

God grant me the sereniity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I bet the wisdom of Emily Pankhurst was questioned on that score?

Loughton_Monkey

the_flying_pig wrote: »

i genuinely, genuinely, genuinely don't understand what the heck you're driving at.
......
i don't at all get this nonsense that you're drivelling out now about whingeing being somehow a badge of dishonour.

A modicum of whinging about things in general is normal.

But the point being made, that you are still missing, can be put yet another way to help your understanding.....

We all want sunshine on that rare week's holiday. But the weather is something we simply cannot change. We get what we get. This is not dissimilar to the political and economic climate. As least we get a small chance to change some of that every 5 years, but once elected, the government and the economy combine to do "what it does".

There seems a strong correlation between someone who sits in the rain for a week, moaning, not going out because they can't go to the beach...... and someone who just want's the "government" or the "economy" to do something they percieve as personally better.

Then there are other people who will be equally disappointed about the rain, but will modify their plans, and go to an indoor amusement/museum, or other entertainment, or maybe dress up well and go for a damned good walk to a nice pub...... and these are the same people who will 'accept' the current house prices, inflation, wage level, interest rate, or whatever and "get on with it" by adjusting their finances to cope with it.

Loughton_Monkey

BillJones wrote: »

Absolutely.

I often get asked for career advice, and the best that I can give people is to concentrate on what they can change themselves, and not to spend time worrying about things completely outside of their control.

I'm slightly staggered by posts on here, for example, complaining bitterly that the job centre staff haven't found them a job, and laughing at how pathetic they therefore must be.

The same posters will then whine that they've been sanctioned for turning up late for their interview. It is as though they have no agency at all, and are simply blown through the world like tumbleweed, the victim of everyone else's incompetence, with no responsibility for what happens.

Couldn't agree more....

The couple of times I have been 'jobseeking', by design or not, are periods which - with hindsight - I would not want to be without. Rather a perverse thing to say, but it's all part of managing one's career.

Don't know about today, but waiting for job adverts and sending your CV was never good enough in my day. Getting the right job is in itself a 'full time job'. It's about pro-actively telephoning, writing, visiting, people who can 'tell you what's going on', or putting you in touch with someone else who 'maybe' knows a bit more.... My "activity logs" for such periods - if in paper - would be a foot-high pile!

But by some strange quirk of nature, 50 specific contacts a day, for example, somehow seems more successful than applying for one job every fortnight when you see one! Funny that!

Proper career management (not just when unemployed) can make a big difference in making your career income small, medium, or large.....

And another 'strange' quirk of nature is that having done all that, whether your income is small, medium, or large, there's something called 'budgeting', or living within your means, and investing the surplus for retirement. Somehow this seems to make people richer as they get older....

But please keep this a secret between us boomers (if you are one) because we wouldn't want the young generations to know this would we? [PS: I have mentioned it once or twice, but I think I got away with it because I'm not sure they understand....]

ruggedtoast

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Couldn't agree more....

The couple of times I have been 'jobseeking', by design or not, are periods which - with hindsight - I would not want to be without. Rather a perverse thing to say, but it's all part of managing one's career.

Don't know about today, but waiting for job adverts and sending your CV was never good enough in my day. Getting the right job is in itself a 'full time job'. It's about pro-actively telephoning, writing, visiting, people who can 'tell you what's going on', or putting you in touch with someone else who 'maybe' knows a bit more.... My "activity logs" for such periods - if in paper - would be a foot-high pile!

But by some strange quirk of nature, 50 specific contacts a day, for example, somehow seems more successful than applying for one job every fortnight when you see one! Funny that!

Proper career management (not just when unemployed) can make a big difference in making your career income small, medium, or large.....

And another 'strange' quirk of nature is that having done all that, whether your income is small, medium, or large, there's something called 'budgeting', or living within your means, and investing the surplus for retirement. Somehow this seems to make people richer as they get older....

But please keep this a secret between us boomers (if you are one) because we wouldn't want the young generations to know this would we? [PS: I have mentioned it once or twice, but I think I got away with it because I'm not sure they understand....]

The point none of you seem to be able to grasp is that there are plenty of young people working hard at their careers for whom this simply isn't making any difference.

There was a trade off for you, for them there probably won't be; not if you count a house, a car, a job that cant fire you with a days notice and a state pension as a trade off.

As much as the metric - hard work = success. No success = laziness might satisfy your worldview, it is a very inadequate way of modelling the world.

Loughton_Monkey

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The point none of you seem to be able to grasp is that there are plenty of young people working hard at their careers for whom this simply isn't making any difference.

There was a trade off for you, for them there probably won't be; not if you count a house, a car, a job that cant fire you with a days notice and a state pension as a trade off.

As much as the metric - hard work = success. No success = laziness might satisfy your worldview, it is a very inadequate way of modelling the world.

The more you bleat on about this, the more it exposes what a "myth" this boomer thing is, and how you don't understand real life.

The first thing you fail to grasp, it seems, is that our economy goes in cycles. It has generally shown upward improvement, but interspersed with several recessions.

If you can't understand that, I feel sorry for you. But in order to move on, you need to understand it, because you need to understand that most boomers, too, started economic life in the 70's when things were much worse. Strikes. Double Dip. Unbelievable inflation. Oil crisis. Increasing unemployment...

Yes it got better for us. Yes it will get better for today's 18-24 year olds.

The second thing you fail to understand is that (unlike today's 18-24 year olds) we looked back at our pre-war born parents and noticed that however "tough" it was for us, they had perhaps had it tougher. Maybe that's why we 'accepted' our miserable lot without too much whinging. The prospect of a 12 year old banger by age 28 was better than the prospect of never owning a car.

In contrast, today's 18-24 year olds look back at their parents who (research has shown) had a staggering 50%/70% higher real terms standard of living than did boomers (for the first 20 or so years of working life).

So isn't it a bit predictable that this is a different benchmark, and has (it seems) planted thoughts into today's youngsters that they are never going to thrive - especially when they see how much their parents earned - but how little they have left to show for it after an orgy of spending?

There are absolutely no reasons whatsoever why today's 22 year old is going to be worse off - all round - than a 22 year old in 1972 [as I was] just starting economic life. No reason whatsoever. In fact every reason to believe he will have far more opportunities, wealth, and comfort than did my generation. And a better state pension in all probability.

Rather ironically, this could also have been true for the generation in between. And maybe for some it will be true over a working lifetime.

Which brings me to the third and final thing you seem to be ignoring....

None of us has any control over the huge range of economic climate(s) over a 40 year working lifetime. It is an undeniable fact that every 40 year period historically shows a massive improvement in economic standards/wealth than the previous 40 year period.

Hence there is only one thing, very broadly, that is going to make any generation poorer than the previous one throughout his/her economic life is personal behaviour.

It really is that simple.

mayonnaise

Great post, LM.

Hooloovoo

mayonnaise wrote: »

Great post, LM.

I have a man crush on LM. I don't think I've ever read a post I disagree with. And if I'm even half as comfortable in retirement as he is I'll be happy.

Large gin and tonics all round!

BillJones

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

But please keep this a secret between us boomers (if you are one) because we wouldn't want the young generations to know this would we? [PS: I have mentioned it once or twice, but I think I got away with it because I'm not sure they understand....]

I'm not a boomer, being a decent few years behind that, but was brought up in a normal working class household, and taught that I was going to be responsible for my own future, and that the planning for that started right back in the early days of school, and continued throughout life.

I have seen no evidence, at all, that people who took this on board, and acted on it, are struggling. The people that struggle tend to be those who did not plan, did not work, and did not think ahead.

Loughton_Monkey

Hooloovoo wrote: »

I have a man crush on LM. I don't think I've ever read a post I disagree with. And if I'm even half as comfortable in retirement as he is I'll be happy.

Large gin and tonics all round!

hang on.....

Too much praise and I'll run out of gin!

the_flying_pig

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

...There are absolutely no reasons whatsoever why today's 22 year old is going to be worse off - all round - than a 22 year old in 1972 [as I was] just starting economic life. No reason whatsoever...

"no reason whatsoever".

oh, ok, all the fuss must be about nothing then. my bad.